The cooling and heating of commercial buildings and residential homes is typically accomplished via forced air and forced hot or cooled water distribution systems. A furnace, heat pump, other fossil fuel furnace, and/or air conditioner are typically used to supply heated air or cooled air to areas of the building or home via ducts. Such distribution systems are often controlled by a single thermostat which is centrally located within the building or home. A person sets the thermostat to a particular temperature setting. When the temperature measured by the thermostat deviates a predefined amount from the set temperature, a furnace, heat pump, other fossil fuel furnace, or air conditioner is turned on to provide heated or cooled air or water to the various regions of the building or home via the duct work or water lines.
Even though the desired temperature may be achieved at the location of the thermostat, the resultant temperatures in the various other regions of the building or home may still deviate quite a bit from this desired temperature. Therefore, a single centrally located thermostat may not provide adequate temperature control for individual rooms and areas. In an attempt to address this problem, duct work and pipes throughout the building or home are fitted with manually adjustable registers, dampers, or valves which help to control the flow of air or water to the various regions.
A damper, which may generally be a valve or plate that stops or regulates the flow of air inside a duct, chimney, variable air volume box, air handler, or other air handling equipment, can utilize manual or automatic functions to shut off or restrict the flow of air into various rooms in order to regulate its temperature and climate. Manual dampers and valves are typically each adjusted to a single position and left in that state. Such an adjustment may be sufficient far a particular time of year, outside temperature level, and humidity level, but is likely not optimal for most other times of the year and other temperature and humidity levels. Furthermore, such an adjustment may only be suitable for a particular time of day due to the internal and external daily load variances that occur depending on, for example, the position of the sun, whether or not lights are on, and how many people are in a particular area. Moreover, it may be time consuming and difficult to manually re-adjust the dampers and valves for optimal comfort level. Dampers actuated by electric motors or pneumatic components are a recent industry development which relieve homeowners of manual damper adjustments, but they may also require the installation of expensive and complex wiring, and/or pressurized air lines, to power sources and thermostats.
The complexity of damper flow control systems continues to increase as the industry has developed multi-zone control systems in an attempt to better control the environmental parameters in each room or region of a home or building, for example, by placing thermostats and/or sensors in each room or groups of rooms. A zone may be equipped with a temperature, humidity, motion, or other sensor in communication with a central thermostat or thermostat located in the zone. When the temperature falls outside of the defined acceptable range, the thermostat or sensor triggers actuation of the heating or cooling source, and/or movement of the dampers, until the zone once again achieves the desired temperature.
However, such systems are not entirely successful since a structure with multiple rooms and zones requires the installation of highly complex wiring systems, and/or pneumatic air lines, in order to provide power and control signals to the thermostats, sensors, and/or dampers. Specifically, the expense of the required wiring or air lines, its installation, and the utility bills associated with powering associated dampers, sensors, and thermostats can be cost prohibitive. Retrofit installation of wiring systems can be particularly difficult and expensive.
Moreover, known climate control systems are typically controlled by a centralized thermostat which is hardwired to a single location. This centralized thermostat, in turn, is hardwired to a power source and all dampers associated with the climate control system. Thus, a person desiring a change in temperature must physically move to the centralized thermostat in order to enter temperature control instructions.
In view of the foregoing discussion, it is apparent that there is a need for a more efficient way of controlling the distribution of air or water and environmental parameters for several zones in a building or home.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional, traditional, and proposed approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems and methods with the system and method as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.